In darkness the stars shine brightest
by 23Sammy
Summary: She had known it was a bad idea, but once, in what actually was another life, she had promised herself to come back here. She looks up at the bright moon above her. She is back home. She is alive. Or at least something to that effect... / post-"Endgame" /


A/N: I wrote the first paragraph almost ten years ago and then abandoned it. Along with writing in general. I am still struggling with a very persistent and very annoying writer's block, but on some days it gets bored and wanders off and I can scibble down at least a few words. On a day like that I found this again and even if is isn't that good, after ten years it deserves to be completed. Disclaimer: Own nothing. Except for the typos. They are mine. And mine alone.

She feels lost. Which is more than a little ironic, she thinks, because for the first time in seven years, she knows exactly where she is, how she got there and how to get home again. It will take less than 15 minutes up the path, through the woods, down the lane and finally ten small steps up to the front door. And along the way there won't be any bad surprises, unexpected detours, Borg, Hirogen, unstable transwarp-conduits or other dangers.

She has to walk past a caretaker's home, though.

But this caretaker is a 67-year-old human by the name of Mable Cheswick and mostly busy shouting after her adventurous little dog Fluffy while simultaneously complaining about her husband, who on most occasions chooses to go fishing rather than assist her in keeping an eye on things out here. Not that the few houses around the lake and their inhabitants really need much looking after. People actually came here to be left alone. Kathryn certainly had. So basically the only threat the lake-resort-caretaker Mable Cheswick poses, is total ignorance of the concept of solitude and personal space. And the endless stream of one-sided conversation that results from this fact.

But right now it is almost midnight and the caretaker is fast asleep. And so is her dog.

So really, there are no dangers on the way back.

With the exception of a few blood-thirsty insects maybe.

Not that she wants to go back to the house just yet. The sun has set a very long time ago and the air is cold now, but neither is a reason to get up and leave. She likes the darkness around her. And the cold. She sits on a simple blanket, her arms wrapped around her knees and stares out into the dark calm water beyond the jetty. She cannot see much of it, but she can sense a quiet flowing movement in the black space beyond and that is enough to assure her that the lake is still there and with it the trees, the meadows, the mountains... in short: the whole big old planet Earth and herself on it. She still needs to be reminded of this from time to time.

While the waves are whispering silently all around her, she thinks about what to do next. "Next" not as in where life, Starfleet and destiny might take her or if she wants another command or maybe teach at the Academy or do something completely different. More like: "Next" as in "Will I be able to sleep tonight?" or "Do I want food when I get back to the house and if so what kind?" The funny thing about this is: The first questions - the big ones she doesn't currently try to answer - scare her much less than the little ones she actually has to answer within the text two or three hours.

She lets go of her knees and puts her right hand down on the soft fabric of the blanket. Her fingers pick a stray leaf off the woollen surface and toss it into the dark, before travelling to her forehead to brush a rebellious strand of hair back in its place.

Sleep. Food. She hasn't had a chance in years to actively influence and claim them beyond the bare minimum necessary to do her job and survive. And now she finds she has no realistic parameters anymore when it comes to measuring durations or quantities of either in order to actually enjoy them. She also finds that she isn't even sure she wants to.

She sighs, stretches her by now rather stiff legs and slides down onto the blanket until she can feel the cold wooden planks of the jetty beneath her back. She crosses her hands behind her head and looks up at the night sky and its familiar stars. A gentle breeze from the lake carries the scent of autumn, of rainy days, falling leaves, of moss and pine across to her. It is so different from the faint metallic, almost neutral smell she had been used to for so long that the intensity of the scents around her make her nose tickle and she has to sneeze. A small smile steals across her face, but before she can catch it, it is gone again. After a moment, she isn't really sure if it had actually been there at all. She shifts a little to get more comfortable, but the pain in her back, neck and shoulders is not impressed with this course of action. She tries to ignore it. Like she tries to ignore everything else that hurts.

There are a lot of things she is ignoring. And a lot things that hurt. Being here is one of them. She had known it was a bad idea, but once, in what actually was another life, she had promised herself to come back here. She had been holding on to this exact image of the lake and the moon and the stars for years and now that she is standing - or rather laying - here, it feels not at all like she thought it would. Just like everything else. She looks up at the bright moon above her.

_You are back home._

_You are alive._

Or at least something to that effect.

She knows the physical evidence suggests both is correct, but she feels neither.

All she does feel, is lost.

And alone.

_Alone._

She forms the word in her mind and the pain it triggers is almost unbearable. Which is why she repeats it.

_Alone._

_All alone._

Her vision becomes blurry, the stars suddenly vanishing and only reluctantly reappearing after she blinks away the tears. There are always tears lingering somewhere behind her eyes these days. Never enough to call it crying, but always a sufficient number to make ignoring them impossible. But never enough to call it crying. Or grief. Or closure. Or sadness. Not even that. Just enough to sharpen the pain for another minute. Which is fine with her.

She hides the hand that had wiped away the tears behind her head again, raising her chin a little and looking defiantly at the moon. It is fine with her. Because she deserves every single second of it. And this, she strongly believes, is not self-pity. It is just punishment. For everything she had done. And everything she had not.

Owen Paris hinted that the powers that be want to slap a promotion on her, once she is back on duty. Parking her behind a desk so she cannot lose another starship is probably a good idea, she agrees, but it feels wrong. What she has done, the harm she had caused along thousands of light-years and dozens of systems does not deserve a promotion. It deserves being thrown out of Starfleet and locked up in a cell for all eternity. Or worse.

She tries to steer her thoughts away from the river of guilt that runs through her, but as usual it is already too late. The current has taken hold of her and instead of the moon above her, she sees the face of the first dead crew-member inside her. Now she cannot help but look at them all, one by one. All the dead, the wounded, the lost ones. All of them. All her fault. Not to mention all the countless lives that were lost on the other side in countless battles with countless races along the way. And everything else that was lost within her own tiny soul. Not that that matters in the grand scheme of things. But still. Even that.

She tumbles further into the stream of raw memory, struggles for a moment to stay on the surface, but suddenly sinks beneath it without further resistance, when she hears a familiar voice above the wail of guilt and pain.

"Aye, Captain."

And then she sees him in her memory. Walking past her to the helm, not stoping, not even looking at her. She sees herself, sitting back in her chair and telling him to lay in a course for home. She remembers every single tremor in her quivering voice. That voice scared her back then, because she didn't know why she suddenly felt so damn afraid. She'd always assumed that when they got home, she'd just close her eyes for a moment and enjoy a deep feeling of relief. Then she thought, she'd go to her ready-room, cry for a bit, laugh for a bit, scream for a bit and re-emerge again with a big smile on her face and in her heart.

She had not expected to be afraid.

She had also not expected Chakotay to be anywhere else but at her side in that very moment.

But she had been wrong. On both counts.

He didn't turn around for a while and when he did, it was to look up at Seven of Nine and flash her a quick smile. The borg smiled back. Kathryn had never felt so alone in her entire life. Before the accompanying pain to this feeling released itself in the form of anger, she got up and disappeared into her ready-room. She stayed there for a long time, hoping beyond all hope that at some point he would burst in with a laugh and a smile and a "Kathryn, we did it" and embrace her and she would finally feel the joy of being home just like everyone else. When he finally did show up, it was to take her down to sickbay to visit Tom and B'Elanna who had asked to see them. Twenty minutes later they were godparents.

The next few weeks went by in a haze. Debriefings, celebrations, good-byes, hellos, they all tumbled into each other and she was left with nothing but a flash of emotions that even now are too complicated to put into words or memories yet. Of all the good-byes, and see-you-soons that were exchanged within a small space of time, she left one till the very end. She can still feel it now. The fear of what she was going to say to him, the fear that she would be irrationally angry and hurt and cold and make it worse than it already was. When it did happen, it was quiet, short and completely undramatic.

The Kathryn Janeway slowly sitting up in the darkness of a cool autumn night wraps her arms around her knees again and closes her eyes, remembering the Kathryn Janeway standing in front of him and Seven of Nine on the lawn outside Starfleet HQ on a warm spring afternoon.

It took him a while to make Seven understand that she was supposed to go ahead and when she finally did and they were alone at last, he simply said:

"So."

"So", she agreed and looked up at him. She realised that she didn't have any words left to say. She was tired. And numb. And empty. And none of it was his fault. Or Seven's for that matter. So she smiled and embraced him, wrapped her arms around him, letting him hold her for a minute and enjoyed one last moment of warmth and comfort, before she severed the connection that had been her life-line for seven years.

"Good-bye, Chakotay", she whispered into his chest, before she let go and left. He did not follow her. She did not look back. That was it.

The memories press against her skull and chest and the Kathryn in the darkness of the night hugs her knees even closer to her body, until her back starts to hurt. She had been willing to sacrifice everything within her to get all of them back home. Her own hopes. Her own needs. Her own fears. Her own sadness. Her own doubts. And her own joys. She had been prepared for all these sacrifices.

The one she had not been prepared for, was the one that had been entirely unnecessary and also entirely her own fault. She had selfishly and foolishly taken for granted that he put up with her guilt and her anger and her impatience and aggression. And he had. For a long time he had supported her and gently led her back to her true self, even when she was irritable and stubborn and made decisions he strongly opposed. He had always made sure that the indestructible Captain Janeway did not sacrifice the not-so-indestructible Kathryn along the long way home. He had also made sure she ate and laughed and she was pretty sure he had also been responsible for more than one mysterious replicator malfunction on the days her coffee intake had reached critical limits before noon. And somewhere along the journey she had stopped thanking him for it and then even stopped realising that he actually still did it. And one day he had had enough of it and she hadn't realised that either at the time. And then it was too late. Thinking back on it, she couldn't blame him, really. She had left him no choice but to give up on her.

_That one, Kathryn, is entirely on you. Not the Captain._

A single tear slides down her left cheek. The body sitting on the jetty does not feel like her own, it is hollow and empty and she only knows it is still there, because her back hurts. She knows she will soon re-invent the indestructible Captain Janeway, go back to Headquarters and bury herself in an other assignment, working away the emptiness, drowning the nothingness with coffee and status-reports and meetings and strategies until the depression finally surrenders to the incredible will-power and passion of the commander, the scientist, the workaholic. She knows that even though this is not the Delta Quadrant she will go back to being The Captain. Or The Admiral. Or anything else with a capital letter. Because that is who she is now. She is used to being like this, even though she remembers a time before that. But that was almost a decade ago in another life, a life that was lost the minute Voyager was hurled across the stars.

Suddenly she lets go of her knees and raises her head with a snort, rolling her eyes at herself.

_Oh come on, stop being so damn melodramatic, Janeway! Get a grip!_

She sighs and re-focuses her attention on the here and now. And here and now all there is, is the moon above her, the lake in front of her and a severe case of the flu ahead of her. She knows it is too cold to stay here on the jetty, but she cannot make herself move, even if this is making her ill.

She also knows she still has to find the answers to the two questions regarding food and sleep.

Suddenly small lights along the path light up as the moon disappears behind a black cloud and the darkness claims the last corners of the shore around the lake. Countless insects start to circle the sudden bright spots like little planets orbiting blazing suns. She hears foot-steps on the path, but doesn't turn around or get up. They are heavy, so she expects them to belong to Mr. Cheswick, who has a small boat anchored to the jetty and sometimes goes fishing at night.

The steps come closer and she growls. She does not want to talk to the old man right now. He is nice, but if she has to listen to his "I know how you feel, my girl, I got lost on the lake once in the fog. Dreadful business. Sat there for over two hours before it lifted and I got back to the shore. Was one scary afternoon, that..." one more time, she suspects she'll...

Actually she doesn't know what she will do, but has really not intention to find out.

Also, she had had a conversation with her sister a few hours ago and that had used up the last of the currently very limited supply of small talk and charming conversation at her disposal. She has no words left today. And no patience either. She doesn't want to talk.

The steps come closer until they stop right behind her. She hears fabric rustling and then there is movement very close beside her. Her body starts tingling as the visitor enters her personal space with an ease that suggests he belongs there. The sensation is warm and pleasant, almost like a memory, which is odd, because the last time she felt like this was back...

And that is when she realises this isn't Mr Cheswick.

Before she can even try to get up, he sits down beside her on the jetty.

"Hi."

He smiles at her. Kathryn stares at him.

"Thought I'd find you here."

She blinks and the smile on his face turns into a wide grin.

"Now that is a first. Kathryn Janeway lost for words. Didn't think I'd ever be witness to that."

She finally kicks herself into motion again and shakes her head. Her face feels weird, the muscles around her mouth moving in directions they were no longer used to, apparently trying to form a smile. At least she hopes this is the beginning of a smile. She is not quite sure how smiling actually works anymore.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

He looks away and out onto the water, then up to the sky.

"You were right. This place is beautiful."

She looks at him closely, well, at the little bit of him she can actually see in the dark. It isn't much. But she sees that he is wearing his favourite shirt, so whatever this is, it is not an official Starfleet visit. At least she doesn't think it it, but then again she doesn't even know if he is still *in* Starfleet anymore. She decides to carefully avoid both his name and rank and stay in neutral territory for the time being.

"I told you that it was. But that wasn't my question."

"I was looking for you."

"Why?"

He shrugs.

"I couldn't sleep."

Her eyebrows rise, as does her whole body and she sits up a little straighter, brushing another random leaf away from the blanket into the darkness. He is still looking out onto the lake, clearly avoiding looking at her. The new expression forming on her face she has no trouble identifying: It is a frown. And she still knows very well how to work those.

"Let me get this straight: You couldn't sleep and so you decided that this was a good reason - and time - to track me down and drop by for a midnight chat?"

"Sums it up."

She shakes her head and suddenly hears something that she cannot identify at first. A laugh. And it is coming from her. She cannot feel it yet, but she can hear it. She almost flinches at the unfamiliar sound. He tilts his head a little and smiles. To which she responds with another shake of the head, partly because all of this feels surreal and insane, partly because she still can't understand how he does it. She had not flinched. Not a muscle had twitched. But his reaction just now tells her that he noticed anyway.

"Now that is a sound I haven't heard in a while", he says, his eyes now trying to find hers in the dark. Kathryn looks away, before their eyes have even a chance to greet each other, let alone meet. The remnants of the smile and the laugh within her are chased away by the simple mentioning of the concept of time itself.

"In a while", she whispers.

There were a lot of thing she had not done in a while. Smiling seems to be the most trivial one, though.

He doesn't comment on her words, just sits there next to her and looks up at the stars, seemingly totally at ease. Calm. Strong. Peaceful. Her world is anything but peaceful, a thousand questions currently racing through her mind. But there is one in particular that reaches the finish-line at warp-speed, before the others even have a chance to clear the space-dock.

She doesn't ask that obvious question, though.  
Or any of the others for that matter.

Something is happening to her and the attempt to grasp what it exactly is, renders her speechless. She feels the pain in her back slowly ebb away and something in her neck suddenly gives way only seconds later. Without the tension, her shoulders are suddenly much further down than they had been only moments ago. They also hurt a lot less. She flexes her fingers and rolls her head from one side to the other. Inch after inch life returns into her skin. It tingles, it hurts, it feels warm and cold. All at once. She closes her eyes. There is something in the silence that does this to her. Something familiar and quiet and almost forgotten. Something that had been missing for a long time. Her body notices its return before her mind does and reacts accordingly: With relaxation.

She takes in the cold night air in long full breaths and with every exhale she feels some of the emptiness leave her body. She knows it will be back once he is gone, but for now she decides not to think that far ahead. Instead she keeps her eyes closed and just enjoys his presence, like she had done so many times on Voyager, when he was right beside her. She remembers each and every time she looked danger and death in the eye and conquered both for the simple reason that he was standing close behind her, sharing his strength and confidence and trust with her.

"So. Why can't you sleep?"

She suddenly hears herself asking a totally different question from the one that had won the the space-race in her mind before. It comes out in such a relaxed and slightly amused tone, that she is stunned for a second, marvelling at the ease with which the words suddenly flow from her, the ease with which she settles into this conversation that is so not what she had expected it to be.

If she is honest, she actually never expected to have *any* conversation with him ever again. Full stop.

He leans back, stretching his legs and finally laying down on the jetty. Kathryn lowers herself back down onto the ground as well and turns a little to look at him. He looks up at the moon again, a slight frown on his face.

"I don't know, to be honest. I just can't sleep."

"And so you thought *I* could help?"

"No, I thought you probably couldn't sleep either."

He is right, of course, but that is not really the point, is it?

Oh bloody hell, Kathryn, don't be a chicken, ask the damn question already!

And so she does, before it can drown her in doubt and anger and awkward silence and ruin the first close-to-pleasant moment she has had in weeks.

It may still ruin the first close-to-pleasant-moment she has had in weeks. But she just has to know.

"And you thought talking to your insomniac former Captain - whom by the way you haven't seen or spoken to for months - was a better idea than waking up your partner?"

He bites his lower lip and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment. Kathryn can suddenly feel her heart beat against her chest. Fast. So maybe she is still alive after all. Funny feeling, that. He sighs and without opening his eyes simply says:

"There is no one to wake up. Seven is gone."

There is pain in his voice, faint and far away, only noticeable in the silence between his words.

But she can hear it nevertheless, which prompts her to reach out and put a hand on his chest. That is also something she had not done "in a while" and somehow this disturbs her much more than the not-smiling-bit had.

She feels his chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the warmth of his body beneath his clothes slowly reaching her cold fingers. She knows she should move her hand away again, but finds it impossible. She also finds it suddenly impossible to hold on to the bitter memories of the last two years. Instead of moving her hand away, she moves the rest of herself closer to him.

"I am sorry to hear that, Chakotay. What happened?"

His eyes still closed, he shakes his head a little.

"It was a dream, Kathryn. Nothing more. A sweet little dream to keep the nightmares at bay for a while. But then the nightmares were gone and I realised that without them... Lets just say: It's over. And better this way. She needs someone with less history than me to really make her happy."

She finally takes her hand away from his chest and at the loss of the physical connection between them his eyes snap open and he turns his head to look at her. It is the first time their eyes have really met in a long time and it takes them both a while to adjust to the intensity of this reunion.

It also takes them both a while to start breathing again.

In the end Chakotay's need for oxygen is apparently greater than hers as he clears his throat and continues.

"And of course she needs someone a lot younger... "

Kathryn rolls her eyes at him. "You cannot be serious. Come on, Chakotay, you are not that..."

He interrupts her with a sigh. "Her words, not mine."

"Her words? She said that to you?" Kathryn is puzzled. And intrigued. "What *exactly* did she say to you?"

With an expression of pain and annoyance on his face he shakes his head slowly.

"I can't tell you. It was humiliating enough the first time around. I'm sorry."

She is already half way through the mental composition of an apology for asking such an intimate question whilst simultaneously giving herself a good mental kicking for assuming things were mending fast between them, when she notices the twinkle in his eyes. She had almost missed it in the darkness, but just before it is gone, she sees it.

She feels a smile stretching her face, rolls onto her stomach, props up her elbows and rests her chin on her hands.

"Tell me."

"No way."

"Come on, Chakotay, tell me. What did she say?"

He screws his face up further and gives her a serious warning glance.

"Don't laugh."

"I won't. I promise", she says with a reassuring smile. He raises an eyebrow, telling her that he is not convinced. After a few seconds of silence, he tells her nevertheless.

"She said that our relationship was going to terminate in 4.6 years, because by then my physical capabilities would be insufficient to sustain a satisfactory physical relationship with her and that was something she wasn't prepared to adapt to. So ending this now, she explained, seemed to be the most prudent course of action, because it would lead to approximately 49.6 percent less emotional damage at this point in time than in 4.6 years... Shall I go on?"

And before Kathryn can even try to prevent it, her body starts to shake with laughter and forces her to roll onto her back and a little away from him. He growls and throws his hands in the air.

"I knew it."

"I am sorry... Chakotay... really..."

"No, no, it's fine. Go ahead, I deserve it", he waves her apology away with a another growl and folds his hands back behind his neck.

Better get comfortable, he thinks. It might take a while before they can resume this conversation.

"No"... she finally manages to gasp between laughs "No, you don't. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I managed to make an old fool out of myself all on my own."

"'You are not a fool."

She rolls back to her side and before she can stop it, her hand is back on his chest, patting his shirt reassuringly.

"And you are not old, my friend."

"4.6 years.." he sighs and looks at her, an expression of mock concern on his face. "You know, I am a little worried, she is never wrong when it comes to equations and numbers."

"Get me her calculations and I'll prove she is this time!"

At seeing the familiar expression of determination on her face, he gives a short laugh.

"You'd actually try, wouldn't you?"

She nods.

"Of course. Wouldn't give up re-calculating, until I managed to get you at least... say... 7.9 years."

"I know, I know", she raises the hand on his chest before he can reply and adds with an apologetic glance: "It's not much, but any more would involve breaking the temporal prime directive and probably causing irreparable damage to the space-time-continuum."

Their combined laughter resonates across the lake and the night and the stars. It's the best sound either of them has heard in months.

After a while his expression turns serious. He removes one hand from behind his head and places it on top of hers. Her hand that is still resting on his chest. She had't even noticed she had left it there.

"Kathryn..."

There is so much pain in her own name, so much pain she is not ready to face. Not now, not yet, not when things finally feel so close to normal again between them. She tries to move her hand away, but he keeps it in place beneath his. His dark eyes search hers and she can see a flicker of uncertainty at what to do with the emotions he finds there. But then he squeezes her hand reassuringly and adjusts the course of their midnight voyage by smiling at her and saying lightly:

"Speaking of damage: It is getting a little cold and I suspect you have been out here a while already."

She sighs and flashes him a thankful glance. Not now. Not yet.

"I also suspect you skipped dinner."

She rolls her eyes at him. And smiles.


End file.
